The United States is moving to sell eight advanced multi-purpose helicopters and 18 naval missiles to South Korea, worth nearly $1.1 billion, according to a defense agency here.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said it has notified Congress of possible sales to South Korea of eight MH-60R Seahawk multi-mission helicopters, along with related parts, equipment, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $1 billion.

It also informed Congress of another plan for a foreign military sale to Seoul for 18 UGM-84L Harpoon anti-ship missiles to be carried by submarines. The expected cost is $84 million.

The agency, affiliated with the Defense Department, said the possible deals come at the request of the South Korean government.  [Yonhap]

South Korea’s defense ministry has requested 2.5 trillion won (US$2.1 billion) over the next five years to “drastically” beef up its missile arsenal to better cope with missile and nuclear threats from North Korea, a military official said Tuesday.

The budget request was made at a meeting of relevant ministers on fiscal policy, headed by President Lee Myung-bak on April 28, the official said, days after the South’s military unveiled a new cruise missile that can hit any target in North Korea.

“The Ministry of National Defense requested budget funds to drastically strengthen its missile arsenal to cope with threats by North Korea, at the conference on national finance on April 28,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

At the conference, the ministry proposed it “needs 2.5 trillion won in its budget over the next five years” to bolster its missile capability, including long-range cruise missiles and the locally-produced GPS-Guided Bomb, the Korean version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition, the official said.

North Korea defied international warnings and launched a long-range rocket on April 13, although it fell apart shortly after take-off. Concerns have grown that the North may soon conduct a third nuclear test as its two previous rocket launches in 2006 and 2009 were followed by nuclear tests.

In a rare announcement on April 19, the South’s military unveiled a new long-range cruise missile that puts all nuclear and missile sites in the North Korean territory within striking distance.

The surface-to-surface Hyunmu-3C has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers. Previous versions of the Hyunmu-3A and Hyunmu-3B, with ranges of 500 km and 1,000 km, are already in service.

Along with the new cruise missile, the South’s military has also deployed a new tactical ballistic missile with a range of 300 km, which is “more powerful than” the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System developed by the United States, officials said.  [Yonhap]

Korea’s plan to dispatch peacekeeping troops to South Sudan this year has become all but impossible, government sources told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.

Dissonance between government agencies is to blame for the delay, which could put Korea further behind its Northeast Asian rivals in a competition to increase its presence in the oil-rich African country, sources said.

Seoul decided last year to send an engineering troop to the eastern African country to help the country after it gained independence from Sudan in July last year.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requested Seoul’s help, and the government stated answering the call would send a signal to the international community highlighting Korea’s transformation from an aid-recipient to an international donor. But Seoul is yet to break ground to build a base for the troops in South Sudan.

“The rainy season will start in [South Sudan] in late May, making it difficult to build a base,” said a government official.

The government hasn’t drafted a bill seeking parliamentary approval for the troop dispatch, either. The 19th National Assembly, led by newly elected lawmakers, will convene its first session in June, but even if the bill passes then, at least several months will be needed for infrastructure building, the official said.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

I think the real reason for not sending the troops is because South Sudan could very possibly turn into a real shooting war between Sudan and South Sudan.  Why would the Korean government want to have ROK troops stuck in the middle of that?

Soldiers of the 20th Mechanized Infantry Division riding an armored infantry fighting vehicle conduct a river-crossing drill in the Namhan River in Yeoju, south of Seoul, on May 2, 2012, as part of an exercise to strengthen the unit's combat preparedness. The K-21 fighting vehicle is armed with a 40mm automatic cannon. (Yonhap)

“The Ministry of National Defense (MND) plans to prohibit the use of Apple’s iPhones in two of its major buildings from August, military officials said Friday,” Lee Tae-hoon reports for The Korea Times.

“They said other smart devices will continue to be allowed after installing a mobile device management (MDM) system that would automatically disable cameras, wireless Internet and recording functions,” Lee reports. “Army Col. Yoon Won-sik, vice spokesman at the defense ministry explained that the MND is reviewing mandating people, including its staff, to leave iPhones in a safety deposit box located outside its buildings.”

Lee reports, “The colonel noted that smart devices running on Google’ s Android OS, an open-source software program, including Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note, will be excluded from its ban as they are compatible with the MDM system.”

“MND officials who use iPhones have expressed strong discontent over the move to ban their handsets as they will need to purchase a new phone and fear that their personal information will be monitored,” Lee reports. “‘I hope the MND will take a more cautious approach over the introduction of mobile device management as this may lead to infringements of our basic rights and possibly a massive leak of personal information stored on its server,’ a military official said on the condition of anonymity.”  [MacDailyNews]

I don’t look at this as a Apple versus Samsung issue but instead an issue of why is a smartphone or tablet allowed in an area that has such sensitive information that it requires its own special smartphone app to disable device capabilities?

As a warning against future North Korean provocations, South Korea has announced it has developed a cruise missile capable of immediately striking anywhere within the communist country.

Thursday’s announcement of the longer-range missile came six days after North Korea’s failed attempt to launch a rocket it says was designed to send a satellite into space. The United States and South Korea believe the launch was a cover to test a long-range missile that could eventually strike the continental U.S.

The new missile has a range of about 1,000 kilometers, approximately 625 miles, Maj. Gen. Shin Won-sik, in charge of policy planning at the Ministry of National Defense, said during a news conference Thursday. He would not release further details.

Officials wanted to “set our people at ease” with the announcement and generate confidence about South Korea’s ability to respond to potential future North Korean attacks, a defense ministry spokesman said Friday, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

“We are consistently preparing to defend ourselves against North Korean missile threats and provocations,” he said.

A second defense ministry official said Friday that new missiles already have been deployed within South Korea, but would not specify how many or where.  [Stars & Stripes]

By the way the 1,000 mile range of this missile does put Shanghai with targeting range around the Gwangju area but South Korea would need a missile with a bit more range to be able to target Beijing.

Washington has agreed on the need to revise a bilateral pact that limits South Korea’s ballistic missile range to 300 kilometers, defense officials said Thursday.

This is equivalent to roughly half the distance between the demilitarized zone and North Korea’s border with China.

Under an agreement reached in 2001 with the United States, Seoul restricted its ballistic missile range to 300 kilometers with a maximum payload of 500 kilograms.

“South Korea and the United States share the view that new measures should be taken to counter growing threats from North Korea’s long-range missiles,” a senior official said asking for anonymity.

“The two sides will begin talks from next month on how long the extension should be.”

Another official said that Seoul and Washington have already reached a consensus that the range should be increased to more than 800 kilometers to bring all of North Korea within reach.

The Korean Peninsula stretches about 1,030 kilometers from north to south and between 175 and 300 kilometers from west to east.

“Seoul wants to extend the range to 1,000 kilometers to cover the whole Korean Peninsula, but will need to slightly shorten this due to possible protests from China and Russia,” another official said.

He forecast that Seoul and Washington will likely conclude to extend the range to 800 kilometers, which is about the distance between the northern tip of the peninsula to Daegu or Gunsan in North Jeolla Province.   [Korea Times]

Taking some measurements on Google Earth the 800 kilometer limit would put Beijing outside the range of the missiles anywhere in South Korea.  They need at least a 1,000 kilometer range missile to hit Beijing from around the Seoul area.  A 800 kilometer missile on the other hand can hit Shanghai when placed near Gwangju.

Not long after shells had rained down on Yeonpyeong Island off the coast of South Korea in 2010, College junior Ryan Kwon lay in bed in a combat uniform with camouflage smeared across his face, clutching a rifle to his chest.

He was nervous.

Tensions between North and South Korea were at an all-time high, and military bases across the country were on high alert. Not more than eight months ago, Cheonan — a South Korean warship — had been sunk by a North Korean torpedo, and rumors around camp said that the Koreas might go to war after all. But with nothing else to do except wait in agony, Kwon then thought about his family and his best friends, and the thought of them slowly brought him a sense of peace.

Today, Kwon is one of a small number of undergraduates at Penn who have completed mandatory military service in a foreign country.

Two years ago, Kwon handed in a letter to the Office of Admissions at the end of his sophomore year at Penn to serve his mandatory 22-month military service in South Korea — a remnant of the Cold War tensions that gripped the peninsula.

While Kwon’s story is rare, the South Korean native isn’t alone in having to serve military obligations.

According to Dean of Admissions Eric Furda, Kwon is among the approximately 6 to 10 people out of an average 50 gap year students who take time off to fulfill their military duties in foreign countries each year.

For Kwon, the prospect of leaving Penn for the military in 2009 did not make him nervous.

“Every Korean-born male has to go to the military, so there really wasn’t any pressure,” he said. “It was just like a rite of passage.”

He knew, however, that it wasn’t going to be easy.  [The Daily Pennsylvanian]

You can read the rest at the link, but you got to respect guys like Kwon who take two years away from their lives to serve their country and don’t try and dodge it like some other people in Korea do.

Radio Free Asia says roughly 40 North Korean soldiers were killed or wounded during South Korea’s counterattack following the North’s shelling of a South Korean island in late 2010.

The U.S. broadcaster released the report Friday citing a North Korean source in South Hwanghae Province in North Korea. The source apparently heard from a North Korean battalion commander that about ten North Korean soldiers were killed and 30 others wounded during the exchange of fire prompted by the North’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.

The source said the commander saw a military vehicle transporting the dead bodies and the wounded to a military hospital known as “Hospital No. 11″ in Pyongyang run by the North’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Radio Free Asia says this source shares close ties with officials of the Fourth Army Corps, which is known to have perpetrated the Yeonpyeong shelling.

The source, who recently traveled to China and revealed the story, says the North Korean military is apparently frightened by South Korea’s cutting-edge weapons and has been reluctant to fight the South since the Yeonpyeong shelling.  [KBS Global]

No link back to the KBS report because Google may flag it for malware on the site.

The government will discuss next week Turkey’s participation in South Korea’s fighter jet development plan.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on Wednesday said that it will send a negotiating team to Turkey from February 22nd to 25th to talk about the matter.

In addition, the administration will also send a delegation on Monday to Turkish Aerospace Industry (TAI) to discuss a joint attack helicopter development project.   [KBS Global]